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Este Blogue tem como objectivo a discussão da violência em geral e da guerra na Pré-História em particular. A Arqueologia da Península Ibérica tem aqui especial relevo. Esperamos cruzar dados de diferentes campos do conhecimento com destaque para a Antropologia Social. As críticas construtivas são bem vindas neste espaço, que se espera, de conhecimento.

Guerra Primitiva\Pré-Histórica
Violência interpessoal colectiva entre duas ou mais comunidades políticas distintas, com o uso de armas tendo como objectivo causar fatalidades, por um motivo colectivo sem hipótese de compensação.


Saturday 25 February 2012

Victor Portugal Valente dos Santos - CAMPO DE BATALHA, LUGAR DE MEMÓRIA

Victor Portugal Valente dos Santos - CAMPO DE BATALHA, LUGAR DE MEMÓRIA

Tuesday 1 November 2011

The Archaeology of Violence and Conflict: From Prehistory to the Great War

Universiteit Leiden
Honours Classes
Laatst Gewijzigd: 11-10-2011

Inleiding

In the 17th century Thomas Hobbes postulated that humans were by nature warlike and that peace could only be achieved by states. By contrast Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued a century later that people were essentially peaceful and only became belligerent when corrupted by civilisation. These philosophical thoughts about the human nature have impacted ideas on warfare in the past enormously. It is only in the last decades that there has been a shift from normative speculations to an assessment of the archaeological data that can inform us about violence and conflict throughout human history. In this course we will evaluate data and ideas about violence and conflict from Prehistory up to the Great War (1914-1918), with evidence from various parts of the world.
The Honours Class will explore the theoretical and practical dimensions of recent, excellent research into conflict and violence through the ages, and will proceed in this manner beyond any ordinary descriptive account. The course will confront students with the major ideas and controversies in the current discourse about conflict in history. Students will learn to think critically about this topic and how to evaluate the material evidence for war and its social implications.
The Honours Class will comprise a series of lectures, which will explore violence and conflict in various periods and from various theoretical perspectives. Whenever possible, reference to conflict in our days will be taken into account. Students will learn from renowned scholars from several countries, who will present the latest developments in their fields of expertise, with ample opportunities for discussion and reflection.

Programma

De Honours Class zal worden ingericht rond acht bijeenkomsten van elk twee uur. De Honours Class vindt plaats in blok III van het tweede semester, de inschrijving sluit 1 december 2011.

Contactpersoon

Prof. P.M.M.G. Akkermans

http://onderwijs.leidenuniv.nl/honours-onderwijs/honourscollege/honours-classes/honours-class-archaeology.html

Thursday 20 October 2011

A arqueologi​a forense sugere que em torno de 15% dos indivíduos nas sociedades "pré-estat​ais" morriam de maneira violenta

Ora viva,
A arqueologia forense suger que em torno de 15% dos indivíduos nas sociedades "pré-estatais" morriam de maneira violenta
Novo livro do psicólogo de Harvard defende que apesar de sentirmo-nos rodeados por violência, ela diminuiu ao longo da história
A história da humanidade representa uma evolução na qual as pessoas são cada vez mais inteligentes, e em consequência disso, menos violentas, diz artigo publicado nesta quarta-feira (19) no último número da revista Nature.
O psicólogo canadiano Steven Pinker argumenta que o aumento da inteligência, que se reflecte em pontuações médias cada vez mais altas nos teste de raciocínio abstrato, e também o desenvolvimento da empatia entre os seres humanos, propiciaram um declive da barbárie nos últimos séculos.
Além disso, a alfabetização e o cosmopolitismo favoreceram uma troca de ideias em nível global que "possibilita a compreensão do mundo e facilita os acordos" entre distintas sociedades.
"Apesar de atualmente sentirmos-nos constantemente rodeados pela violência, em séculos anteriores a situação era muito pior. Impérios em colapso, conquistadores maníacos e invasões tribais" eram comuns, afirma Pinker.
A arqueologia forense e a demografia sugerem que em torno de 15% dos indivíduos nas sociedades "pré-estatais" morriam de maneira violenta, uma proporção cinco vezes maior à registrada no século XX, apesar de suas guerras, genocídios e crises de fome.
Nesse sentido, Pinker aponta que a afirmação popular de que "o século XX é o mais sangrento da história" é uma mera "ilusão" que dificilmente pode ser apoiada em dados históricos.
A barbárie diminuiu comparada a épocas anteriores não só em relação a conflitos armados, mas também a comportamentos sociais, diz o investigador..
No século XIV, 40 em cada 100 mil pessoas morriam assassinadas, enquanto atualmente essa taxa se reduziu a 1,3 pessoas.
"Além disso, nos últimos séculos, a humanidade abandonou progressivamente práticas como os sacrifícios humanos, a perseguição de hereges e métodos cruéis de execução como a fogueira, a crucificação e a empalação", lembra o psicólogo.
Pinker atribui essa evolução ao aperfeiçoamento da racionalidade e não a um "sentido moral" dos seres humanos, que por si só serviu para "legitimar todo tipo de castigos sangrentos".
"A propagação de normas morais tornou frequentes as represálias violentas por faltas como a blasfêmia, a heresia, a indecência e as ofensas contra os símbolos sagrados", afirma.
O estudo ressalta que com o tempo o ser humano foi diversificando sua tendência ao comportamento agressivo, presente desde os primeiros Homo sapiens.
"A racionalidade humana precisou de milhares de anos para concluir que não é bom escravizar outras pessoas, exterminar povos nativos, encarcerar homossexuais e iniciar guerras para restaurar a vaidade ferida de um rei", diz o psicólogo.
O autor do estudo apoia sua tese sobre o aumento da inteligência em pesquisas anteriores, que mostram como o Quociente Intelectual (QI) médio aumenta a cada geração.
"As empresas que vendem testes de inteligência têm que normalizar os seus resultados periodicamente. Um adolescente médio de hoje em dia se voltasse a 1910 marcaria um QI de 130, enquanto uma pessoa típica do século XX não passaria da pontuação 70 atualmente", explica Pinker.
--
Saúde e fraternidade,
António Correia
facebook: http://pt-pt.facebook.com/people/Antonio-Correia/100001002237842

Monday 5 September 2011

University of Glasgow :: Centre for Battlefield Archaeology :: Conference Programme

Friday 7th October


09.00 - 13.00 Registration for delegates in the Gregory Building (see campus map)

10.00 - 13.00 Tour of the Arms and Armour Collections at Glasgow Museums, Nitshill Resource Centre (details to be posted)

Afternoon sessions and keynote speech to be held in the Officer Training Corps, 95 University Place

Chair: Lt Col Simon Higgens (Commanding Officer, Glasgow & Strathclyde Universities Officer Training Corps)

14.00 - 14.20 John Winterburn (University of Bristol)
Flying Elephants and Pumas: aerial archaeology and a desert war


14.20 - 14.40 Terence Christian (University of Glasgow)
Title tbc


14.40-15.00 Matthew Kelly (AHMS Pty Ltd/University of Sydney)
Eora Creek, Papua New Guinea, Battlefield Survey: local knowledge and historical events of World War Two

Discussion

15.15-15.30 Coffee/Tea Break

15.30 - 16.45 Session Two: Equipment, Methods and Techniques of Historical Warfare

Chair: TBC

15.30-15.50 Christina Mackie (Cranfield University at the Defence Academy)
An Application of Modern Ballistic Techniques to 15th Century Artillery

15.50-16.10 Brendan Halpin (University College, Dublin)
The Importance of Reenactment and Western Martial Arts: an Irish case study

16.10-16.30 James O’Neill (Queens University, Belfast)
Trailing Pikes and Turning Kern: assimilation and adaptation of military methods during the Nine Years War in
Ireland,1593-1603

Discussion

19.00 – Keynote: Dr Tony Pollard (Director, Centre for Battlefield Archaeology, University of Glasgow

To be followed by a wine reception in the Officer's Mess, hosted by the Glasgow & Strathclyde Universities Officer Training Corps

Saturday 8th October

09.00 - 09.30 - Registration and sessions to be held at the Queen Margaret Union (see campus map)

09.30 - 11.10 – Session Three: Social Meanings in Material Culture

Chair: TBC

09.30-09.50 Rachel Askew ()
‘Not with down-right bloews to rout’: the social side of siege warfare during the English Civil Wars

09.50-10.10 John Mabbitt (Newcastle University)
The Origins of Humpty Dumpty: archaeology, destruction and the narratives of the city

10.10-10.30 Abigail Coppins (Southampton University)
Prisoners of War at Portchester Castle 1793-1815

10.30-10.50 Chantel Summerfield (Bristol University)
The Forgotten City of Tents

Discussion

11.10 - 11.30 – Coffee/Tea Break

11.30 - 13.00 – Session Four: Death, Memory and Heritage

Chair: TBC

11.30 - 11.50 Emma Login (Birmingham University)
The Memory of Defeat or the Defeat of Memory: war memorialisation in the Lorraine region of France

11.50-12.10 HyunKyung Lee (University of Cambridge)
The Post-conflict Response of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) to the Built Heritage of the Japanese Occupation

12.10-12.30 Artemi Alejandro-Medina (University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria)
Franco’s Bunkers and Hitler’s Dreams in the Canary Islands: the heritage nobody wants to inherit

12.30-12.50 Tadeusz Kopys (Jagiellonian University)
The Massacre of Polish Soldiers in the Soviet Union 1939-1944

Discussion

13.10 - 14.30 Lunch

14.30-15.45 Session Five: Conflict Archaeology in Practice

Chair: TBC

14.30 - 14.50 Syed Shahnawaz (University of Padua)
Braving the Conflict: Swat Valley archaeological sites and the Operation Rah-e-Raast

14.50-15.10 Owen O’Leary (JPAC/Centre for Battlefield Archaeology)
Accounting for America’s Missing: recovery and identification of a Consolidated B-24 Liberator from World War Two

15.30-15.30 Alexandria Young (Bournemouth University)
Reconstructing the Aftermath of Battle: the effects of vertebrate scavenging on the recovery and identification of human remains

Discussion

15.50 - 17.10 Session Six: Tourism and Thanatourism at Sites of Conflict

Chair: TBC

15.50-16.10 Justin Sikora (International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies, Newcastle University)
Considering the Value of Battlefields as Heritage through On-site Interpretation

16.10-16.30 Stephen Miles (Glasgow University)
From ‘Fields of Conflict’ to Dark Attractions: battlefields as thanatouristic sites

16.50-17.10 Annalisa Bolin (University of York)
Witnessing the Remains: material heritage, memory politics and western tourism in Rwanda’s National Genocide Memorials

Discussion

17.00 - 19.00 Drinks to be held in Jim's Bar of the Queen Margaret Union

19.00 - Conference Dinner: Mother India, Westminster Terrace

Sunday 9th October

09.00-9.30 Registration

09.30-11.10 Session Seven (a): Methodologies for Conflict Archaeology
~
Chair: TBC

09.30-09.50 Julie Wileman (University of Winchester)
Evidence for Prehistoric Warfare: a counter-intuitive perspective

09.50-10.10 Joanne Ball (University of Liverpool)
Lost Landscapes of Conflict: approaches to locating ancient landscapes

10.10-10.30 Carlos Landa (CONICET/Universidad de Buenos Aires), Emanuel Montanari (Universidad de Buenos Aires) and Facundo Gomez Romero (UNCPBA)
La Verde Battlefield (25 de Mayo, Buenos Aires Province)

10.30-10.50 Gavin Lindsay (Independent Researcher)
Material in Conflict: rethinking approaches to challenging assemblages

Discussion
Or

09.30-11.10 Session Seven (b): Heritage Management and Remembrance

Chair: TBC

09.30-09.50 Emilio Distretti (University of Portsmouth)
The Stele of Axum and Italy’s Colonial Legacy: all the remains in the land of amnesia

09.50-10.10 Elizabeth Cohen (University of Cambridge)
Reminders of a Shared Past: the Ottoman heritage in Greece

10.10-10.30 Iraia Araboalaza (GUARD Archaeology) and Carmen Cuenca-Garcia (University of Glasgow)
Retrieving the Long Lost Memory: Spanish Civil War archaeology

10.30-10.50 Emily Glass (University of Bristol)
‘Enverism Nostalgia’ or Albanian Cultural Heritage Icon: conflicting perceptions of Tirana’s pyramid

Discussion
11.10-11.30 Coffee/Tea Break

11.30-12.45 Session Eight: Ancient Warfare

Chair: Dr Jon Coulston (Ancient History and Archaeology, University of St Andrews)

11.30-11.50 Samantha L. Cook (University of Liverpool)
Archer’s Looses in Sudan: an Asiatic style in an African context

11.50-12.10 Catherine Parnell (University College, Dublin)
The Kopis and the Machaira: portrayals and perceptions

12.10- 12.30 Salvatore Vacante (Università degli Studi di Genova)
Alexander the Great and the Defeat of the Sogdian Revolt

Discussion

12.45-14.00 Lunch

14.00-15.15 Session Nine: Landscapes of Conflict

Chair: Ryan McNutt (Centre for Battlefield Archaeology, University of Glasgow)

14.00-14.20 Benjamin Raffield (University of Aberdeen)
A Landscape of Endemic Warfare: the archaeology of Scandinavian-occupied England

14.20-14.40 C. Broughton Anderson (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Subtle Violence: improvement and clearance in Galloway during the 18th Century

14.40-15.00 Salvatore Garfi (University of East Anglia)
Colonialism, Conflict and Exclusion: the case of Western Sahara

15.15-15.30 Coffee/Tea Break

15.30-17.00 Workshops/Roundtables

Workshops titles to be confirmed

Conference Posters
These will be on exhibit in the Queen Margret Unition throughout the duration of the conference.

Angela Cunningham (Kingston University)
Terrestrial Lidar as a Data Collection Method for Historic Landscape Reconstruction

Emma Login (University of Birmingham)
A Biographical and Collective Memory Approach to War Memorials
Beatriz Rodriguez Garcia (University of Bath)
Consuming Dark Tourism: the role of organisational storytelling and narratives

Saturday 27 August 2011

Tropical Civil War Correlated to El Niño.

Discovery News > Earth News > Tropical Civil War Correlated to El Niño
Analysis by Tim Wall
Thu Aug 25, 2011 03:04 PM ET

 
The El Niño/La Niña cycle has been correlated to periodic increases in warfare by researchers at Columbia University's Earth Institute.
Drought, crop losses, and other effects of the dry, hot El Niño climate conditions may destabilize already vulnerable nations. For example, the research notes the case of Peru. In 1982 a severe El Niño dried out the highlands of Peru and destroyed crops. That same year, attacks by the Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, guerrilla revolutionary movement escalated into full blown civil war.
BLOG: Climate Change and Corn a Bad Combo in Africa
Though El Niño can't be said to cause warfare, the research found a strong correlation between fluctuations in the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and large-scale civil strife. ENSO is the collective term for the El Niño/La Niña cycles.
The research, published in the journal Nature, found that the arrival of El Niño doubles the risk of civil wars across 90 affected tropical countries. El Niño, which strikes every three to seven years, may partially account for a fifth of worldwide conflicts during the past half-century.
"The most important thing is that this looks at modern times, and it's done on a global scale," said Solomon M. Hsiang, the study's lead author. "We can speculate that a long-ago Egyptian dynasty was overthrown during a drought. That's a specific time and place, that may be very different from today, so people might say, 'OK, we're immune to that now.' This study shows a systematic pattern of global climate affecting conflict, and shows it right now."
BLOG: Did Drought Kill the Mayans?
The scientists examined ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) from 1950 to 2004, alongside the onsets of civil conflicts that killed more than 25 people in a given year. They studied 175 countries and 234 conflicts, more than half of which caused in excess of 1,000 battle-related deaths each.
For nations where ENSO has little effect on the weather, the chances of a civil war stayed steady at 2 percent. In countries where ENSO influences the weather, La Niña increased the chance of civil war breaking out to about 3 percent.
But during El Niño, the chance doubled, to 6 percent. The Columbia researchers estimated that El Niño may have played a role in nearly 30 percent of the civil wars in those countries affected by El Niño, and 21 percent of all civil wars during the period studied.
Specifically the study mentions Sudan, first in 1963, then 1976, and finally in 1983. The fighting which started in 1983 continued for 20 years and resulted in 2 million deaths.
El Salvador, the Philippines, and Uganda were plunged into turmoil during a 1972 El Niño.
Angola, Haiti, and Myanmar experienced serious civil conflict starting in the 1991 El Niño year.
Congo, Eritrea, Indonesia, and Rwanda suffered deadly conflict during the 1997 El Niño.
Wealthier nations are better at keeping calm through disruptive El Niño events. Australia is influenced by ENSO, but has never had a civil war.
"But if you have social inequality, people are poor, and there are underlying tensions, it seems possible that climate can deliver the knockout punch," said Hsiang.
"No one should take this to say that climate is our fate. Rather, this is compelling evidence that it has a measurable influence on how much people fight overall," said coauthor Mark Cane, a climate scientist at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory . "It is not the only factor--you have to consider politics, economics, all kinds of other things."
Currently, the Horn of Africa suffers serious drought as well as brutal and deadly civil conflict. Discovery News recently covered research correlating La Niña conditions with drought in Eastern Africa.
BLOG: East Africa Drought Linked to La Niña
"Forecasters two years ago predicted that there would be a famine in Somalia this year, but donors in the international aid community did not take that forecast seriously," said Hsiang in a teleconference covered by the AFP.
"We hope our study can provide the international community and governments and aid organisations with additional information that might in the future help avert humanitarian crises that are associated with conflict."

Thursday 4 August 2011

‘We go to gain a little patch of ground’: postgraduate research in conflict archaeology'

The Centre for Battlefield Archaeology Postgraduate Conference


First call for Papers

7th - 9th October 2011, University of Glasgow

Email: conflictpg@gmail.com

The Centre for Battlefield Archaeology at the University of Glasgow is hosting a three-day postgraduate conference bringing together researchers working within the field of conflict archaeology. It is intended that this conference be a postgraduate answer to the Fields of Conflict conference cycle. The first Fields of Conflict conference, held in Glasgow in 2000, represented a significant horizon for those eager for the opportunity to share pioneering research in the burgeoning field of conflict archaeology. In the last decade, conflict archaeology has transformed from a radical sub-discipline into an established, yet dynamic, academic subject covering a myriad of research avenues.

This postgraduate conference will bring together postgraduate researchers from around the world, providing a platform to present a new generation of research in the field of conflict archaeology. It is hoped that this conference will address a perceived lack of forum for the discussion and presentation of postgraduate work in all facets of conflict archaeology and will in turn foster a vibrant postgraduate research community that forges intellectual, international and interdisciplinary connections. We go, therefore, ‘to gain a little patch of ground’ (Hamlet IV.iv.18).

Papers will cover a wide range of research interests, reflecting the multifaceted nature of conflict archaeology, covering all time periods from the ancient to the contemporary.

Papers will examine topics such as:

■Methodologies and new approaches

■Landscapes of conflict

■Warfare, violence, resistance

■Politics and propaganda

■Memorialisation, remembrance and forgetting

■Imprisonment / internment

■Colonial encounter

■Heritage management of sites of conflict and public engagement

■Battlefield tourism, thanatourism

■Recreation, re-enactment and ersatz experience

■Ethics of studying violence and conflict

■Investigating and interpreting uncomfortable / problematic histories

■Recovery of remains

In addition, delegates are invited to participate in student-led workshops and round table discussions during the final afternoon of conference proceedings (more information to follow).

We are currently still accepting proposals for A0- and A1-sized research posters. If you would like to present your research as an academic poster, please send a 250-300 word abstract to conflictpg@gmail.com by 1 September 2011.

Selected papers from the conference will be published in a special edition of the Journal of Conflict Archaeology.

Watch this page for updates – a provisional programme will be coming soon.

For further information contact Natasha Ferguson, Jennifer Novotny or Jonathan Trigg.

Centre for Battlefield Archaeology

University of Glasgow

Gregory Building

Lilybank Gardens

Glasgow G12 8QQ

+44 (0)141 330 2304

conflictpg@gmail.com

Keynote speaker

The keynote speaker is Dr. Tony Pollard, University of Glasgow. He has carried out battlefield and conflict related archaeological projects in the UK, mainland Europe, Africa and South America. His interests range from 18th-century warfare, particularly in relation to the Jacobite rebellions in Scotland, to the archaeology of the First and Second World Wars. A co-organiser of the first Fields of Conflict conference, Dr. Pollard has long been at the forefront of research in conflict archaeology. His talk will explore (what?).

The keynote speech will be given on Friday evening, 7 October at the Officer’s Training Corps Drill Hall. This will be immediately followed by a welcome reception at the Drill Hall with a cash bar.

Conference dinner

The conference dinner will be held on Saturday, 8 October at Mother India, 28 Westminster Terrace, Glasgow G3 7RU (see http://www.motherindiaglasgow.co.uk/index.php?action=cms.westminster for more information). The price is £18.50 and includes starters, entrees, and bread and rice from a set menu. The menu includes vegetarian options.

We ask that you pay the conference dinner fee in advance, no later than Friday, 23 September so that we can finalise the booking for our large party. Though places may be available on the day, these will not be guaranteed.

Please advise us well in advance if you have any special dietary requirements or allergies.

To view Mother India’s set price menu, click here.

(add menus if we can get them)

Field trip

On the morning of Friday, 7 October, we will be offering an artefact handling session led by European Arms & Armour curator Ralph Moffat, at the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre, Nitshill. A minibus will pick you up at 09.30 and transport you directly from the Archaeology Department (Gregory Building) to the Resource Centre, returning to the Archaeology Department at midday. For a sneak peak at some of the items in the Glasgow Museums collection, see http://collections.glasgowmuseums.com/cld.html?cid=533626

There is no charge for this session, however, please register here as soon as possible. Places are extremely limited, due to restrictions on how many people are allowed in the museum stores at one time.

If you have any questions or require additional information, email conflictpg@gmail.com

Link to the online web registration form here
For further information contact Natasha Ferguson, Jennifer Novotny or Jonathan Trigg.

Centre for Battlefield Archaeology

University of Glasgow

Gregory Building

Lilybank Gardens

Glasgow G12 8QQ

+44 (0)141 330 2304

conflictpg@gmail.com

Sunday 24 July 2011

The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and Its Causes

Author: Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker's riveting, myth-destroying new book reveals how, contrary to popular belief, humankind has become progressively less violent, over millenia and decades.
Given the images of conflict we see daily on our screens, can violence really have declined? And wasn't the twentieth century the most devastatingly brutal in history? Extraordinarily, however, as Steven Pinker shows, violence within and between societies - both murder and warfare - really has declined from prehistory to today. We are much less likely to die at someone else's hands than ever before.
Debunking both the idea of the 'noble savage' and a Hobbesian notion of a 'nasty, brutish and short' life, Steven Pinker argues that modernity and its cultural institutions are making us better people. He ranges over everything from art to religion, international trade to individual table manners, and shows how life has changed across the centuries and around the world - not simply through the huge benefits of organized government, but also because of the extraordinary power of progressive ideas. Why has this come about? And what does it tell us about ourselves? It takes one of the world's greatest psychologists to appreciate and explain this story, and to show us our very natures.

Tuesday 12 July 2011

Sexo e Violência: Realidades Antigas e Questões Contemporâneas

Novo livro
lançamento durante a reunião da Anpuh
são paulo – 21 de julho de 2011
apoio: FAPESP
ORGANIZADORES
José Geraldo Costa Grillo (UNIFESP)
Renata S. Garraffoni (UFPR)
Pedro Paulo A. Funari (UNICAMP)
São Paulo
Annablume/FAPESP
2011
Sumário
Introdução
O terrorismo dos kamikazes? Bombas carregadas a Eros
Ian Buruma
Mundo Antigo:
Tramas nos domínios do faraó
Margaret M. Bakos
O jardim do pecado: uma narrativa de violência sexual na Mesopotâmia
Katia Maria Paim Pozzer
Guerra, violência e sociedade na iconografia do sacrifício de Políxena
José Geraldo Costa Grillo
Homoerotismo, sedução e violência na Grécia antiga. Presentes e raptos, visões da pederastia na iconografia da cerâmica ática (séc. V a.C.)
Fábio Vergara Cerqueira
Corpo e sexualidade feminina na Atenas Clássica
Fábio de Souza Lessa
Sangue na arena: repensando a violência nos jogos de gladiadores no início do principado romano
Renata Senna Garraffoni
Sexualidades antigas e preocupações modernas: a moral e as Leis sobre a conduta sexual feminina
Marina Cavicchioli
Sexualidade e Violência no Reino dos Céus: O caso do Evangelho Secreto de Marcos e as tradições cristãs primitivas.
André Leonardo Chevitarese
Gabriele Cornelli
Mundo Moderno:
Arqueología, Resistência escrava e rebelião
Charles E. Orser Jr.
Pedro Paulo A. Funari
Espetáculos da diferença: gênero, raça e ciência no século XIX
Ana Paula Vosne Martins
A prostituição ontem e hoje
Margareth Rago
Os sussurros de Eros e Tânatos Renata Plaza Teixeira
Também quero ser “gato”: masculinidades e relações de subordinação
Vanda Silva
Crianças e Jovens: Adestramento e violência
Judite Maria Barboza Trindade

Monday 4 July 2011

Interpersonal Violence in Paleolithic and Mesolithic Societies

Posted on 05/14/2011 by Katzman in Aggsbach's Paleolithic Blog




These are razor sharp microlithic arrowheads from the middle to late Ertebølle period. Such artifacts could not only be successfully used for hunting animals, but also for killing humans.
Biological anthropologists argue for a continuity of an aggressive instinct from a common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans (Kelly 2005) -but why should an aggressive attitude be evolutionary more successful than coalitions with friends?
Social anthropologists see interpersonal violence as the outcome of competition of individuals for status, prestige and high rank. They have also noted, that inter and intra group violence is more prevalent in non segmented societies, than in segmented ones (Marcus 2008).
Historical Materialists simply believe that conflict and warfare are driven by the need for food, land and other resources.
The archaeological record of interpersonal violence shows an enormous regional variation, clearly arguing against any simple monocausal explanation. A convincing gold standard of identifying victims of a lethal conflict is the association of artifacts lodged in human bones, with corresponding skeletal damage or the presence of lethal bone lesions that are unambiguously caused by other humans.
The earliest possible skeletal evidence of intra group violence comes from Sima de los Huesos, Atapuerca, Spain, with at least 32 human skeletons dating to ca. 250 k.a. BP. Several skulls of this sample have healed impact fractures. A final report is not available and therefore it remains somewhat unclear whether these findings should be interpreted as evidence of human conflicts.
Two late Paleolithic (Epigravettian at ca 13 k.a. BP) bodies of this kind are known from Italy. One, from San Teodoro cave in Sicily, was a woman with a flint point in her right iliac crest. This artifact was designed as a triangle and was most probably an arrow point. The other was a child with a flint in its thoracic vertebra, found in late Epigravettian layers of the Grotta dei Fanciulli (the famous Grotte des Enfants) at Balzi-Rossi / Grimaldi, on the LIgurian Italian / French border.
The most remarkable discovery of late Paleolithic Age comes from Jebel Sahaba, a few kilometers north of Wadi Halfa on the east bank of the Nile. A graveyard (ca 12 k.a.BP) containing 59 burials was located on a hill overlooking the Nile. Twenty-four skeletons had flint projectile points that were either embedded in the bones or found within the grave fill in positions which indicated they had penetrated the bodies. The excavator of the site, Fred Wendorf (The prehistory of Nubia, II p. 991) wrote: ” The most impressive feature is the high frequency of unretouched flakes and chips. In a normal assemblage all of these would be classified as debitage or debris and none would considered tools. Yet many of these pieces were recovered from positions where their use as parts of weapons were irrefutable”. joteIn total, more than 40% of the men, woman and children in the commentary had died by violence. Fred Wendorf, suggested that environmental pressure and vanishing resources on the end of the Pleistocene were the causes of violence, but this remains only one hypothesis. A detailed analysis of the skeletons with nowadays methods (dna-analysis, stable isotopes) is missing till now. If war is defined as organized aggression between autonomous social units, the archaeological record at Jebel Sahaba may indeed indicate the presence of an early war.
Coming back to the European Record, at Ofnet cave in Bavaria two pits contained the skulls and vertebrae of thirty-eight individuals, all stained with red ochre, dating to around 6.5 k.a. cal BC (Orschiedt 1998). The Ofnet finding most probably represents a massacre, which wiped out a whole community and was followed by the ceremonial burial of skulls. Most of the victims of deadly attacks were children; two-thirds of the adults were females, which led to the suggestion, that a temporary absence of males may have been the precipitating cause of the attack. Half the individuals were wounded before death by blunt mace-like weapons, with males and females and children all injured, but males having the most wounds.
Territoriality may have had an important connotation in semi sedentary Ertebølle communities. At Skateholm, two larger cemeteries from the middle to late Ertebølle period both located on an island contained about 85 graves. An arrowhead was lodged in the pelvic bone of an adult male and a bone point was found with another male At the Ertebølle Vedbæk cemetery on Zealand, one adult, probably male in a grave with three bodies had a bone point through the throat. Bone points that probably caused lethal damage have also been found in the chests of burials of adults at Bäckaskog and Stora Bjers in Sweden. Other Mesolithic victims of fatal injuries are known from France (Téviec in Brittany) to the Ukraine (Vasylivka III cemetery) in the East.


Ofnet-Cave (after R.R. Schmidt)

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Imix says:

05/16/2011 at 10:55 am

Two things cross my mind when reading on this topic: First, that hominis unlike other primates are or became hunters of large mammals – killing a large mammal is deep in their blood and their psyche – also, then, of humans? Second, while we do not know the circumstances and context of the famous Upper Paleolithic cave paintings, there is a conspicuous absence of images of interpersonal violence such as war parties, raids, killings in them, which is in contrast to rather frequent depictions of such acts in most historial ethnic art.



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Cernunnos says:

05/17/2011 at 9:47 am

Very interesting topic, indeed. I haven’t heard of the mentioned quite clear indications of interpersonal violence during the later phases of the paleolithic. I’d appreciate if you could state your sources, not because I reject your credibility, of course, but because I’d like to find out more about the sites by myself. Thanks a lot!
Anyway, they are all quite late and I doubt that the Sima de los Huesos evidence has much to do with the usual meaning of the term violence. Still, like in the previous comment, I consider the notion of lacking evidence (of course you know about the problems of “absence of evidence”) for inter- and intrapersonal violence during most of the paleolithic and especially in contrast to post-paleolithic periods, as a still valid paradigm.



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Katzman says:

05/17/2011 at 5:45 pm

I doubt the Sima de los Huesos evidence also, and of course it does not fulfill my “gold standard”. The most useful articles and books about the topic:
Thorpe I. J. N. Anthropology, archaeology, and the origin of warfare. World Archaeology; 2003. 35: 145–165.
Kelly R.C. The evolution of lethal intergroup violence. PNAS 2005. 102: 43 15294-15298.
Marcus J. The Archaeological Evidence for Social Evolution. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2008. 37:251–66
Wendorf F (Ed.) Prehistory of Nubia. Vol 2 954-996